Climate change coping and adaptation strategies: How do cocoa farmers in Ghana diversify farm income?

Bismark Amfo and Ernest Ali

Forest Policy and Economics, 2020, vol. 119, issue C

Abstract: Climate change poses a serious threat to many farmers' yield and income. Previous studies often applied a general approach to examine climate change mitigation strategies implemented by farmers. Our study focuses on income diversification of cocoa farmers in Ghana as a strategy to cope with climate change. We compiled data from 400 cocoa farmers, and applied a Heckman two-step regression to investigate the probability and extent of cocoa farm income diversification. Further, we used beta regression to determine the share of annual farm income generated by diversification. Most cocoa farmers in our study region diversify farm income as a strategy to reduce climate change impacts. These strategies comprise crop and livestock diversification, intercropping of cocoa farms, provision of labour for other farmers, and agricultural-related economic off-farm activities. Factors that influence income diversification include the age of the farm, access to credits, extension contacts, the information sources on climate change, and government support. The study provides recommendations for policy- and decision-makers to enhance diversification strategies in the country's cocoa sector. These include the provision of financial credits, farm input subsidies, and farmers' training on farm management.

Keywords: Climate change; Coping and adaptation strategies; Farm income diversification; Cocoa; Heckman two-step regression; Beta regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934120302112
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s1389934120302112

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102265

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().